Plastic In Rivers And Seas

It’s a view, but people were able to live in 1950 and have their backsides wiped. I think you conflate very short term labour shortages in one part of the world with the need to reduce the impact of humanity on the whole world with very long term strategies, ( I did say 5,000 generations - not 70 years). It’s not about living harmoniously it’s about living at all.

What about a compromise - how about getting back to 1987 world population levels. That’s 5 billion.

The worlds population has increased by 50% in just over thirty years. That’s a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of plastic consumed. A lot of environmental damage and suffering created to.

No one knows what the optimum world population is, but mass extinctions of other biological life on earth and destruction of eco systems would suggest it’s too big now without very drastic changes.

David Attenborough said “As I see it, humanity needs to reduce its impact on the Earth urgently and there are three ways to achieve this: we can stop consuming so many resources, we can change our technology and we can reduce the growth of our population.”

 

I wonder if the extra 50% of world population over the last 30-odd years are the people doing the extra consuming. Or is it people in western countries with relatively stable populations as a result of the constant economic growth model those countries follow?

 

What I meant is we have serious difficulties managing a growing elderly population. We have found it difficult to manage even small perturbations in the Labour market. This colossal restraint of breeding would mean insufficient working age people across the World.

But even if it was desirable, how on Earth to achieve it? The one child policy in China was difficult enough to follow and miserable for many. How will you dissuade people from having children?

The best way to get on top of it is to ensure good standards of health and living across the board. Educate on contraception and family size and ensure that people who choose to live without children are not considered deficient.